Porridge and Old Clothes

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

Essentially a family chronicle, Porridge and Old Clothes is an account of a Manitoba family of Lowland Scots origin — of their early adventures as immigrants in the sod hut days, through good times and bad, described by a third-generation descendant of the earliest corners. Eileen M. Scott clearly has an almost total recall of her own childhood and of the anecdotes handed down over the years on both sides of her family, as well as the run of various family diaries. She tells her tale with good humour and zest, and the result is a life-like picture of an era of hard economic times, but of spirits that never flagged. Primarily of local and specialized historical interest.